


For You

by swirlybutt-mcmangocunt (pumpkinqueene)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I've tried to avoid mentioning specific holidays in canonverse, Keeping with the spirit of the show, Sexual Content, WAFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinqueene/pseuds/swirlybutt-mcmangocunt
Summary: A collection of short fanfictions, lovingly written for close friends in December 2016





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verdite (Flareon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flareon/gifts), [Succubitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Succubitch/gifts), [FluffKills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffKills/gifts), [healmycorruption](https://archiveofourown.org/users/healmycorruption/gifts), [Tashiekink](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tashiekink).



For Jen, Baking

The scorched remains of brownie batter clinging to the bottom of the pan bore a passing resemblance to Cincinnati when Peridot dragged it from the depths of the smoky oven. She coughed, with a dish towel over her nose, and regarded it balefully. No amount of condensed caramel sauce or canned whipped cream was going to plate that mess up. With a sigh, she stomped down on the pedal of the trash can and tipped the whole lot into it, where it smouldered on top of her last five disastrous cooking attempts and partially melted the plastic garbage bag.

“I don’t think this is working out, Boudicca,” she said morosely. Her girlfriend’s tiny maltese poked its nose out of its blanket shroud, and tilted its head questioningly. Apparently, the burning smell and general disaster zone the kitchen had become was too much for it to handle, because it ducked back into its fluffy cocoon and shuffled backwards until its croissant-shaped form curled up against the back wall of its sheltered dog bed.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Peridot snorted. 

Was it worth going for attempt number six, she wondered? She had known from the outset that she couldn’t cook for shit, but she’d really thought this time would be different. She’d planned everything meticulously, from the first ingredient to the last second of cooking time. She’d even braved message boards full of catty suburban moms to find out what exactly constituted a “low speed”, whether vanilla extract was a constituent ingredient (because she’d forgotten to buy some), and would a ten-by-twelve inch pan work in place of a nine-by-thirteen inch?  
The sum total of her efforts sat in the trash can, probably solidifying like layers of rock and adhering to the bag. She’d have to take care of that before Jasper came home.

“What the fuck have you done to my kitchen?”

On second thoughts, the mess eating its way through the trash was probably the least of Peridot’s problems. One entire cupboard was empty, its contents piled in a tottering heap on the dining table; there was probably one clean spoon in the entire apartment, while every other piece of dining ware and baking equipment was crammed into the sink, irrespective of the perfectly functioning dishwasher under the counter; the work surfaces and floor were dusted in a combination of every powdered baking substance available in Walmart on a Friday night, from baking soda to ground almonds and seventy per cent cocoa powder; several baking pans sat forlornly on the stove, drooping a little where Peridot had somehow managed to melt them in a domestic oven; a frying pan (casualty of her one and only ill-advised attempt to fry the brownie batter) sat beside them with a broken spoon sticking out of the solid hunk of residue within it, like some kind of modern Excalibur; and Jasper had just walked in after an extended business trip to find her kitchen in disarray, her girlfriend covered in chocolate, and her prized pooch hiding at the back of its doggy bed to avoid the chaos.

“I was trying to bake you brownies,” Peridot explained, “It didn’t go so well.”

Of course, that was when the mountain of dishes decided to experience a timely landslide, sending several gooey spatulas splatting onto the floor.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Jasper said, dropping her bags onto the square two feet of table left unscathed, “How did you not set off the fire alarms?”

“I did,” Peridot admitted glumly, “Three times. Then I took the batteries out. I was going to put them back in when I was done.”

“Hm,” Jasper said, looking around, “You know you’re not supposed to cook right? I mean, I’m surprised you’re not already on a first name basis with the entire fire brigade, considering how many fires you started during our first year dating. I thought we agreed-.”

“I know!” Peridot groaned, “I just…I wanted to surprise you. And I thought nobody could possibly mess up brownies. If stoners with the munchies can make brownies, it stands to reason that a Biochemist with a doctorate should be fully capable of mastering something so objectively simple-.”

“And yet,” Jasper drawled, poking the rigid spoon in the frying pan, “Wow, is this a new molecule?”

“I hate you,” Peridot grumbled insincerely. Jasper laughed.

“Come on, let’s get this shit cleaned up,” she said, “Throw out anything you’ve managed to destroy and load the dishwasher. I’ll clean the counters and floor, and put my-” She picked up a random box “-puy lentils back. Please tell me you didn’t use these.”

Peridot threw a dishcloth at her head.

It took them an hour to clean the whole kitchen, but they made it not entirely unbearable by blasting The Ronettes’ Christmas album, and singing into whichever mop or spoon they were holding at the time. Peridot nearly tore something trying to decide whether she was turned on or amused when Jasper began to dance seductively to “Frosty the Snowman”- and then she found her face in an extremely busty bust and her hands all over an ass which was more than capable of functioning as a damn shelf, and she decided that the dumb music was irrelevant anyway.

Finally, the kitchen was back to its pre-Peridot condition, and the dog felt secure enough to dart out of its bed and make a nuisance of itself running around Jasper’s ankles.

“Let’s bake something,” Jasper decided, scooping up her tiny dog, “I’ll make sure you don’t cremate yourself, and you get to make something which isn’t illegal to transport in most states.”

“What, like a headless corpse?” Peridot grumbled pointedly.

“Like you can reach my neck,” Jasper scoffed, nuzzling her dog’s nose.

Which obviously led to the most antagonistic and sexually charged cookery class of Peridot’s life. She was just able to hold out until the brownies came out of the oven, steaming and gooey with a roasted marshmallow and chocolate caramel topping, but this was the last straw. She couldn’t possibly be expected to handle this on top of her how hot Jasper looked in her Christmas apron- especially when she was only wearing her bra and panties underneath after she’d gotten her clothes dirty cleaning up the kitchen. One bite, and she decisively squashed and smeared the rest right into Jasper’s breasts. It was all sticky, hot, and sweet on her tongue, and Jasper’s sternum thrummed with the sound of her surprised moan.

They fucked right there on the kitchen floor, then cleaned up again and stumbled off for a giggly shower. And afterwards, they drank glasses of eggnog, and finished the pan of brownies with their fingers in front of the television, tipsy and content with a yappy ball of fluff wedged between them as they tangled their legs together beneath the blankets. Outside, it stopped snowing and the moon got up, and Peridot thought about the ring stashed in her dresser upstairs. It would probably be too cliché to do it right now, at midnight on Christmas Eve with snow pressing against the glass and the tree full of lights. She should wait. Plan something. This was too spontaneous. Too…

Jasper had really long eyelashes, and the most beautiful lips.

“Where the fuck are you going?” she slurred when Peridot tried to escape without waking her.

“Just…two seconds, I need to grab something!” Peridot called, disappearing down the hall. 

-

For Kim, Mistletoe

The garland was straight. In fact, Jasper was positive it was so straight that it was called Brad and was about to host a frat party in the beach house. It was just that straight.

Unfortunately, Pearl didn’t seem to share her confidence.

“Just a little higher on the left there, Jasper,” she called, standing on tip toes and squinting at the big…ribbon-covered thing Jasper was supposed to have affixed between the rafters about an hour ago. And she would have, if Pearl wasn’t so…fussy.

“P, if it gets any straighter, it’s gonna buy a Nicholas Sparks novel,” Amethyst observed, crunching her way through a box of peppermint bark, “You still have like three more to go. But at your speed, the holidays will be over by the time you finish.”

Pearl bounced on the balls of her feet, wringing her hands fretfully. She was one of the last gems Jasper would have expected to become invested in a ridiculous, vapid human cultural festival, but there she was all the same: in a pale blue, woolly sweater, directing the solstice preparations as half a dozen apple pies baked in the kitchen and Garnet did something bizarre to a turkey’s ass.

“I know,” Pearl sighed, “I just…I want everything to be-.”

“Perfect,” Jasper and Amethyst chorused.

“Yes,” Pearl admitted in a small voice, “It’s…well, this is the largest collection of gems on earth since the war, and I thought it would be nice if we all…got together and celebrated something silly, just for the sheer fun of it.”

“We can do that without spending an hour putting up one decoration,” Jasper pointed out, “And this will go faster if we allocate everyone individual tasks instead of you trying to control everything.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Jasper,” Pearl replied with a snooty look, “It’s unattractive.”

“Oh please,” Jasper simpered in return, “I’m never unattractive, and you know it.”

That Pearl could only stand there, burning blue in the face as she stammered like a faulty recording, left Jasper feeling unexplainably smug.

“Amethyst, go and stick those…white and green things wherever they’re supposed to go,” she said, taking advantage of Pearl’s momentary speechlessness, “Fuck, go crazy and put the red ones up too. I’ll finish up with this garland thing, and Pearl can put the stuff on the tree.”

It was the best plan they had, so Pearl could hardly argue. If she’d had her way, they would have still been decorating the beach house at the summer solstice. Instead, they managed to finish up well in advance of dinner, nobody got strangled for being excessively annoying, and everything looked reasonably similar to the pictures in the magazine Pearl had showed them when she was trying to get them to envisage the end result. There was a tree (kind of shrimpy; just about seven feet, and more of a sapling, really), covered in glittering baubles, icicles, birds, pinecones, stars, berries, and whatever else Pearl had hung on its branches. There were lights winding around the rafters and beams, and framing the windows with a warm, buttery glow against the snow piled up outside. There were garlands, heaving under the weight of apples, cinnamon sticks, dried fruits, winter flowers, candy canes, bells, and yet more stars. There were giant ribbons, and bead chains, and baskets of citrus fruits beside candle wreaths and dried flowers; and star-patterned blankets, and festive donuts, and piles of gifts wrapped in crinkly, metallic paper they weren’t to open until sunrise tomorrow.

Jasper wasn’t about to admit that it was nice, but…it kind of was.

“Man, I’m gonna eat till I puke tomorrow,” Amethyst sighed happily, flopping onto the sofa, “Hey J, grab me a soda from the kitchen, would ya?”

“I know your legs are stumpy, but they still work, don’t they?” Jasper said, without looking up from the decorative sexton she was positioning on the coffee table.

“Yeah,” Amethyst said, “But maybe I’m still sore from when you mercilessly beat me up and nearly killed me-.”

“That was months ago!” Jasper glowered at her. Amethyst’s smirk was positively devious.

“It still hurts, J,” she said with a theatrical pout, resting her hand on her chest, “In here.”

“Right,” Jasper deadpanned, “Will a soda make it better?”

“It’ll soothe the ache momentarily,” Amethyst relented, “It is but a balm for wounds yet unhealed-.”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll kill you for real this time,” Jasper grunted. Nonetheless, she was already headed in the direction of the kitchen.

“Thanks, Jaybie!” Amethyst called with an obnoxious kissy-noise, “You the bomb!”

“I’ll show you bomb, you little-,” Jasper muttered, not watching where she was going. She paid for her inattentiveness when, right in the doorway, she crashed into Pearl- whose perfect lattice apple pie ended up squashed into Jasper’s front. It was piping hot, undoubtedly delicious, and would now never be eaten because nobody wanted to eat a pie off someone’s belly.

Well, Jasper didn’t think anyone in this particular house would want to eat a pie off her belly, anyway.

“My pie!” Pearl wailed, clutching her head with both hands. The pie remained where it was, glued to Jasper’s uniform through a combination of inertia and apple sauce. Amethyst’s strident laughter was a predictable outcome of such a catastrophe, so Jasper wasn’t even phased when it started up.

“Yes, there’s a pie stuck to me,” she said.

“Nah, dude, I don’t care about that,” Amethyst sniggered, to Jasper’s surprise (and Pearl’s, apparently), “Look up!”

Strictly speaking, Jasper didn’t have to look up to see what she was pointing at, because it was directly at eye level. A sprig of leafy white berries, held together with an elegant red ribbon and secured to the beam with an inelegant iron nail. She glanced down at Pearl in askance, and was surprised by the shade of blue rising up Pearl’s face, and the startled expression she was wearing.

“Pucker up, gems!” Amethyst crowed, “You know the rule. Get caught under the mistletoe, it’s make-out time!”

Not content with the horrific shade of blue Pearl’s face had turned (which made her look more like a lapis lazuli than a pearl), Amethyst cranked things up several notches by making breathy declarations of love, peppered with kissing-noises and girlish moans, all in her best (most annoying) Jasper and Pearl impressions.

“Nobody’s kissing anyone they don’t want to,” Jasper said, “Especially not because a plant said so. And Pearl doesn’t want to, so fuck off or I’ll tie your ass to your face with your balls.”

“Jasper!” Pearl gasped.

“Dude, lemme write that one down!” Amethyst grinned, “I’ll use it on Farty Marty next time I see him. Hold on, I’ll get a pen.”

Of course, once she had hared off to add to her pile of ammunition in her ongoing war against Vidalia’s ex, Jasper and Pearl were left alone beneath the mistletoe, silent and awkward. Jasper regretted getting Amethyst to leave.

Although…Pearl was pretty cute, in an unconventional way. Dainty and tall and graceful, sort of like a bare tree in winter. She had nice blue eyes, and a beautiful singing voice, and she danced like she was made of ribbon and light. Right now, she was looking up at Jasper with a sad crease in her brow that Jasper really wanted to smooth away.

“I should have warned you,” Pearl said, “I just…didn’t think. You don’t have to kiss me, you know. You were right about that.”

“And you don’t have to kiss me,” Jasper shrugged, “So I’m glad that’s decided.”

“But…if you wanted to kiss, I wouldn’t…be opposed,” Pearl added, “If you wanted to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jasper nodded, “The same goes for you.”

“Because if you wanted to,” Pearl said, staring hard at Jasper’s mouth, “I think that would be…quite nice. As it is tradition. And it doesn’t have to mean anything! There’s a general understanding that-”

“Shut up and kiss me, Pearl,” Jasper said, stooping down to eye-level.

And Pearl did; surprisingly heatedly, regardless of the pie, with her hands all over Jasper’s body and her knee in a pretty audacious place, as they knocked down several decorations and didn’t even pause when Amethyst returned with a scream of excitement and a horde of wolf-whistles.

-

For Mel, Gifts

Jasper sneaking around tended to result in dire and disproportionate consequences for even the most neutral of bystanders. The results of her last scheme were (in no particular order): one (1) new fusion, one (1) defunct kindergarten full of corrupted gems (quantity: unknown), a colossal blow to Amethyst’s self-esteem (quantity: indeterminate), and her own foray into corruption (quantity: inapplicable). 

There had been spikes coming out of her eye-sockets.

In Peridot’s experienced opinion (her “experience” residing in dealing with Jasper), allowing this to continue uncontested was an impossibility. She had a duty to preclude any Jasper-related disasters; for her own mental well-being, and for the general well-being of the Crystal Gems. Her timely intervention may well be critical.

And that was her justification for following Jasper into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” she demanded shrewdly. 

“Looking for the good lube so I can finger my asshole,” Jasper shot back.

See? Tiring.

“Hilarious,” Peridot glowered, “But stop deflecting. What’s that behind your back?”

“Condoms,” Jasper said, backing into the wall, arms behind her back, with an expression which dared Peridot to come any closer, “After what happened to Rose Quartz, I’m not taking any chances.”

“You gift wrap your condoms?” Peridot said. She knew what gift wrap was. It appeared at least once a season in Camp Pining Hearts, normally enclosing some shallow and pretentious gift or other Paulette gave to Percy, who was clearly meant for Pierre, who didn’t bother to wrap his presents because they were experiences worth more than Paulette’s disposable trinkets- 

“They’re for Greg,” Jasper said quickly, “To stop him from killing someone else with his next hybrid offspring.”

“Who is the gift for, Jasper?” Peridot sighed, wondering how it was possible to be simultaneously exasperated and revolted.

“None of your business,” Jasper snapped back.

Peridot had fully intended to interrogate her further, but after she had watched Jasper stuff the purple package into her cleavage, she’d decided that (on balance) she didn’t care about the Crystal Gems that much. Let Garnet deal with…whatever this was. Peridot had tried, but she had her limitations. In this case, trying to pilfer a giftwrapped package of unidentifiable and possibly hazardous origins from between Jasper’s breasts was where she drew the line.

She backed out of the bathroom, closed the door, and tried not to think about what Jasper might be doing in there…before colliding headlong with Amethyst as she attempted to get away to reduce her chances of overhearing anything distressing (especially if Jasper had been telling the truth about the lube).

Amethyst was no behemoth, but she was still a quartz. Peridot hit the ground with a reedy squeal, losing her lucky alien appearance modifiers and hitting her head on the bathroom door.

“Peridot?” Jasper’s voice echoed.

“Ow,” Peridot managed. Sturdy or not, that hurt.

“Her boxers fell down, but she’s not dead,” Amethyst called back, “Hey, can you wipe your butt and get out here? I’ve got something for you.”

After a few seconds of silence (apart from Peridot’s complaints, which were ignored), the door swung open and Jasper stepped out.

“Nothing comes out of there,” she grumbled unnecessarily.

“Yeah, whatever,” Amethyst said, “Hey, listen…I gotchu something.”

When Amethyst grinned like that, pandemonium tended to follow. Jasper’s eyes narrowed- and rightly so, in Peridot’s opinion.

“If this is another blow-up doll-” Jasper warned. Her hand went to her cleavage, presumably to check that the gift was still there. Peridot was lucky enough to be in the know, but she imagined that, to Amethyst (who wasn’t in the know) Jasper looked like she was feeling up her own breasts.

“Yeah, they’re great,” Amethyst said impatiently, dancing on the balls of her feet, “Real big and…breasty. Can I give you the thing now?”

“Sure, get the prank over with,” Jasper sighed, holding out her hand. She was a braver gem than Peridot.

“Close your eyes!” Amethyst urged, and Jasper did.

Definitely braver than Peridot. Or stupider. Stupider was equally appropriate. Jasper possessed vast reserves of both.

To Peridot’s disappointment, nothing exploded or covered Jasper in silly string or left her with magic marker on her face or…anything amusing at all. Amethyst reached into her shirt, pulled out a fussy pink package, and slapped it into Jasper’s hand with a strange and wholly redundant “Boom!”

“Pearl wrapped it,” she explained when Jasper opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow at the enormous orange ribbon on top, “Open it, come on! It’s a gift! I got it for you, so you’d better appreciate it!”

“I’ll appreciate it if it’s any good,” Jasper replied.

It transpired that Amethyst had selected a trio of appearance modifiers for Jasper; all of which were entirely appropriate for her (even if they weren’t exactly Steven Safe).

“You think I’m a bitch,” Jasper noted, holding up the first: a purported “camo print” “tee-shirt”, with the words “major bitch” transcribed on the front in a hot pink font.

“What gave you that idea?” Amethyst asked, inspecting her nails.

“I don’t know,” Jasper deadpanned as she held up the other two shirts with a pointed look. The first read “#1 bitch” (which Peridot would not contest) and the second, “#bottom #bitch” (which Peridot was also not willing to contest).

“They’re probably too small, but you can cut the sleeves off, wear em like crop tops,” Amethyst said, “Like em?”

“Yeah,” Jasper smiled- and the scariest aspect of that answer was that she appeared to be telling the truth, “Thanks runt.”

“No prob,” Amethyst said breezily, “So where’s mine?”

Wordlessly, Jasper reached into her cleavage and pulled out the purple box she’d been so aggressively concealing from Peridot. Amethyst caught it and immediately ripped the paper off, scattering it on the floor carelessly. Pearl would yell. Granted, however, she did that a lot.

“You got me a donut maker?!” Amethyst said, “Oh man, this is awesome! Now I can eat donuts whenever and put mustard on them without Sadie looking at me all strange! J, how’d you afford this?”

“It turns out I can throw people out of bars and get paid for it,” Jasper said, “You?”

“Greg,” Amethyst shrugged.

Meanwhile, Peridot quietly slipped away and tried to avoid contemplating what Jasper might have been doing in that bathroom.

-

For Nova, Knitting

In many ways, Jasper knitted just because she liked to defy expectations. That was her entire reason for taking up the craft, despite how awkward and fiddly it was to try to wind and pull minute loops and strands together, with needles which felt like toothpicks in her hands. She practiced other diversions, of course; some of them as predictable as could be (like touring biker bars and wrestling circuits) and some of them equally unexpected (like cooking, and tutoring the needy denizens of Beach City in the art of beauty). But knitting gave her something concrete to strive towards; something which lasted. It was a skill, and a challenging one for a gem created with neither delicacy nor fastidiousness in mind. Jasper liked a challenge.

To call her first efforts underwhelming would be a disservice to underwhelming endeavours. They were hideous; so knobbly, misshapen, and unidentifiable that Peridot commended her on her efforts to clothe the fusion shard experiments. The colours were all wrong, the patterns couldn’t even be considered as such, and their trails of yarn tangled together in the bag until three attempted projects became one lumpy clump of wool. Even those items which escaped intact were normally tossed away when she found that the seam ends didn’t line up.

Had it been in her nature to throw in the towel, she was sure she would have after the first month of frustrated, fruitless attempts. But she was nothing if not aggressively persistent. Slowly, incrementally, glacially, she improved. By the winter, she had even conquered the Fair Isle technique, and had knitted more socks and hats than anyone really knew what to do with. Everyone received a sweater that year (and Steven received several, because he was small and actually needed them, no she wasn’t going soft, thank you, Amethyst).

Pearl liked to sew. She’d often join Jasper in the living room, humming sweet little songs as she lovingly patched up the careworn edges of Steven’s life. She said she liked making things neat and pretty, even if it was a pearl thing to do. The difference was that she chose to do these things. Nobody made her. You understand now, of course, don’t you, Jasper?

Jasper thought she might. But she didn’t think she was any closer to understanding Pearl. So she watched, and she studied, and she tried. And slowly, a blanket took form.

It wasn’t an intentional act. She had been casting around for something to knit when Pearl had bounded in, twirling around and declaiming the attributes of some long lost Crystal Gem treasure or other, which had been newly rediscovered. She had an energy about her, flitting about like a bee in summer, like bird song given form. Jasper had quietly reached for the yellow yarn and cast on a row.

There was nothing fundamentally pretty about the end result of a year of Jasper’s labour. The colours were selected based on evocation rather than aesthetics; feeling rather than logic. It was a rainbow mishmash, an asymmetrical chronology of a year in Pearl’s life, as viewed from Jasper’s perspective. Canary yellow and furious red jostled together, with acid green and deep, passionate mauve, and a light candyfloss colour which mingled with enigmatic purple and dismal blue when Rose Quartz’s name arose. When Pearl was cruel, Jasper knitted in cold grey bands of stockinette stitch, and thought of frigid ice beneath a moody sky; but thankfully, Pearl was rarely cruel. 

Steven was peach, soft, fuzzy and warm as his smile. Connie was teal, noble yet reserved. The war was orange, like a sunset choked by smoke, and Jasper’s striped back beneath the lash.

Arousal was flashing, blinding magnesium-white, hot and molten as wax as they rolled into each other like breaking waves.

“Here,” Jasper said in the afterglow, her breasts still damp with sweat, “I made it for you. Your…moods. For a year.”

In her relaxed, fucked-out state, she’d thought it best to get this over with while she was too boneless to be embarrassed by her sentimentality. Pearl took the blanket with an unfathomable purple look, and took a deep breath as she raised it to her nose. When she lowered it, her revealed face was radiant yellow. 

“I hadn’t realised you paid such close attention to me,” she smiled, running her fingers over the weave, “For an entire year, you say?”

“Hm,” Jasper said, “The snow’s nice, don’t you think?”

“Steven likes it,” Pearl said, all tender peach around her smile.

“It’s pretty,” Jasper said, “Like you.”

“Oh!” Pearl blushed, forget-me-not blue, “Well, I…thank you! Oh, goodness, I-! But…well, it’s not as pretty as you!”

She finished with an endearing flourish and an off-centre but pleased expression, like a fawn which had slipped over and just managed to right itself. After all that they’d done together today, her embarrassment should have been exasperating rather than quaint; but she was lovely and nude, and seemed as delicately beautiful as lace or silver filigree, with all the strength of bedrock. Jasper patted the empty place beside her, and Pearl tumbled back in as though she had been waiting for the invitation. The blanket came with her.

“I backed it with fabric,” Jasper said, “I thought you’d like it to feel soft.”

“It’s very nice,” Pearl sighed, resting her head on Jasper’s breast.

“Even though it’s not symmetrical?” Jasper ventured, half-teasing.

“Despite the fact that it’s not symmetrical,” Pearl agreed.

Outside, dusk fell and frost crackled in the snow-slush as the temperature dropped for the night. But Jasper’s room was warm, and Pearl was mauve.

-

For Tasha, Snow

The snow fell on Jasper’s upturned face like blossoms in the spring; silent in the stillness, white, and gentle as stroking fingers. But their kiss was icy, and they were gone too soon. She blinked them out of her eyelashes, peering up at the burnished dusk in a vain attempt to find the sun. Maybe it had died and nobody had noticed. It would be just like this decrepit mudball to keep on spinning regardless.

She wondered if Pink Diamond would be cold tonight. But of course, even the least of gems couldn’t feel the cold- and Pink Diamond was the greatest of them all. Unsurpassable and indomitable until the last star winked out, and all was dark apart from the four Diamonds shedding their warm glow like the points of the Southern Cross.

Jasper had hoped that getting away from everything would help her to think. Very little grew here, in this place beyond the sun where the fragility of organic life was pitifully obvious.

The wind whispered past, stirring her hair with a playful murmur and rustling the lanky black pines, but still the sun didn’t show her face. She was still there. She had to be- somewhere, millions of miles away, while Jasper stood on the earth in tundra, watching snow settle on gem shards and axe-helves. 

Around her, the darkness rose and the bronze moon came with it, shouldering aside the cloud cover. She was beautiful and majestic, but Jasper missed the warmth of the sun. She had slipped away, and Jasper hadn’t even seen her go.

“What do you hope to accomplish by staring at the sky?” Yellow Diamond demanded. 

“She’s gone,” Jasper said. Snow melted on her face, warmed by her flesh as it slipped over her lashes and down her temples. Still, she didn’t look away from the sky. 

“She’s gone,” Yellow Diamond agreed with finality.


End file.
